


Every Shade Of Light

by OreoPromises



Series: Picture Prompts [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Image Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:36:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12768174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OreoPromises/pseuds/OreoPromises
Summary: E





	Every Shade Of Light

**Author's Note:**

> E

Tokyo at night had been his favourite thing for as long as he could remember. 

Day meant school, responsibilities, time shared with others when he wanted some time alone. Don’t get him wrong, Eren loved his life. He loved Tokyo, with all it’s skyscraper grey, sun reflecting from glass sharply, hundreds of people swarming past in busy lines. The crows squeal above him and subways rattle beneath his feet and the air smells like home, but it’s nothing compared to Tokyo at night.

Eren had taken a subway after school as usual- it was friday though, so the subway that usually carried him home was racing away from home now, hot air blowing through his hair at every subway switch, his footsteps from tram to tram hurried and light with excitement. He’d usually be with company, anyone he could find of his usual group- Mika or Connie or Erwin- but today he’s alone, and the dark night air sends a shiver down his spine, mind graciously clear and content. When he steps off the last subway and out into the open, he feels like he could fly.

 

Tokyo at night was quickly becoming his favourite thing. Day meant noticing how grey everything was, which wasn’t so bad itself, monochrome suited him just fine, but the differences were more obvious in the day. How everyone was unfamiliar, how many of them there were, how the tall skyscrapers made the city seem too small and too big all at once. Levi missed his town sometimes, when there was no grass in sight and the only birds in the sky angry city crows. But at night the differences were erased in the moonlight, burnt away by neon lights . The air was somehow different at night, cold and crisp and static, and Levi felt his spirits lift as the dusk came. Armin was at his side too, the promise of street food and shopping after their shift making him feel infinite.

  
  
  


Eren lets the lights brighten his eyes as he breaths out, feeling himself let himself go with the translucent breath the night air colours grey. The street he finds himself walking on is one he has never been to before, and immediately he takes a liking to it. It’s on the outskirts of Tokyo’s centre, busy in the dusk but not as tightly packed with people as usual, a side street opening out onto another, wider stretch of smooth pavement with market stalls and shops lining each side, the perfect mixture of traditional reds and golds and modern neon reflecting in cold glass. 

There’s one stall in particular that catches his eye. He’d been making his way slowly down the street, stopping to rifle through jackets and jumpers in the shops he likes and picking up a red bean bread from a stall, paying attention to everything and nothing all at once, without seeing the stall at the bend in the road. He feels free in the night air, but the sight of the stall is something else entirely. Something about it has Eren’s soul burning like wildfire. Makes the air around him thin. Fate, maybe. Or maybe home.

It’s small, with only two people selling the goods, but without a doubt the most beautiful one Eren has ever seen. It’s one of the traditional-looking ones, kanji painted lanterns hanging from it’s roof, but upon closer inspection Eren can see the clash of modernism it has too. The foundation of it is shaved white stone, the large pebbles making up the base and covering the front panel of the stall, topped with a wooden plank counter. It’s lit up inside by powerful bulbs, drawing Eren towards it like a moth to flame, and when he gets closer Eren can see the stall’s products are equally as gorgeous. Leather bound notebooks with embellished spines and pages, gold and silver glinting in the glow of lanterns, edging pages or swirling around the cover, horses or flowers or beautifully written kanji calligraphy. There’s a glass display case a little further back, rows and rows of hand cut jewelry, engraved wooden rings and flowers pressed between glass for pendants, and to the other side of the notebooks are wooden cut outs in all different forms. Blocks of palm and maple and mahogany carved into intricate designs, faeries and bears and dancers.

“Can I help you?” Someone asks, and it takes Eren a lot of effort to lift his eyes from the stall, to look up at one of the workers and see him smiling down at him. It’s a boy around his age, with massive blue eyes and long, yellow hair, smiling as if he was seeing his oldest friend. Eren feels himself smile back immediately.

“Oh, I was just looking” he says, and surprisingly the boy doesn’t seem annoyed that he doesn’t want to buy anything. At any other stall Eren would have been glared at until he left.

“Did you make these?” He asks, curiosity getting the better of him, and since the stall had no other customers on his side. 

“Some of them” the boy says, and there’s pride in his voice, but it’s the good kind, the kind that comes of satisfaction after hard work, no arrogance to it. “I’m Armin, by the way.”

He hadn’t expected to meet someone so friendly, and Eren knows he’s returning Armin’s smile genuinely now, not as an automatic response. “Eren.” 

“Nice to meet you Eren.” 

Armin picks up one of the notebooks, and the way he holds it so familiarly, Eren already knows it’s one of his own. “I make the notebooks” Armin says, thumbing through bronze-lined pages fondly “bind all the paper together for the pages, wrap the leather around them. Takes an age” Armin sighs, laughing.  

“Levi does the finer stuff- he’s much better at carving than I am, too” Armin adds, ruffling the back of his hair. It isn’t embarrassment on his face though, closer to admiration, a desire to do better too. 

 

Levi catches the end of Armin’s words from his place at the side counter, just as he’s bending the edges of brown paper between his fingers, handing over the bag to a smiling customer. He feels the pride of selling one of his items- a stone pendant cut with the image of lilies he’d made one day last spring, strung through with black string- the same time he feels himself shrink away from the complement Armin is no doubt giving him. He feels eyes on him and tries his best not to cringe away from them as he tidies around him quickly.

 

Eren notices the other boy behind Armin again, the one who’s had his back turned to him since he spotted the stall. He’s short, but lean and strong looking, with charcoal black hair glinting in the lantern light as he leans over the counter on the right side of the stall, passing over a paper bag to a customer. As the light catches him, his profile is cut into the darkness. Eren notices how pale his clear skin is, how defined his jawline is- not something he usually notices- the undercut he hadn’t noticed before drawing his eye and making his stomach flutter.

  
  
  


“Levi’s work is really something” Armin is saying, and Eren drags his gaze away to see the carving Armin’s holding out to him, an expectant look in his eye, keen to show off his friend’s talent. 

Eren takes the wood in his hand, turning it over. It’s by far his favourite thing he’s seen yet, and that’s really saying something. It’s a carving of a bird made of soft beige wood, the body of it erupting from the branch of a tree. The detail is amazing, the perch the bird is leaving cut into a million times, tiny scratches and indents creating the bark. But the bird itself. It’s a tiny piece, but the bird is all Eren can see. He has a feeling it’s meant for low light, because the tiny specks of reflective glass on the wings pick up the lowlight in such a beautiful way, throwing glints of luminescence below the bird as they catch the light. Eren didn’t know freedom could be expressed like this, but that’s what he sees when he looks at the carving in his hand. Freedom itself cut from the wood, in the way the bird shines, how its wings are stretched so carefully towards the open air. 

“Wow” Is all Eren can manage to say, but Armin just laughs knowingly. 

“Amazing, right?” Eren nods, but suddenly there’s a deep voice over Armin’s shoulder, and Eren can see the other carver for the first time.

“What are you talking about this time, Armin?” 

 

Levi is not what Eren had been expecting. He’d seemed almost harsh looking in profile, all sharp lines, but he looks different now, as Armin laughs guiltily and turns to him.

“I’m allowed to talk you up, it gets us customers.”

Levi rolls his eyes, drawing Eren’s attention away from the collar bone sticking out of his loose shirt up to his face. His features are fair, thin eyebrows and thin lips, fair skin and elf-like face shape, but his eyes. They’re not like Armin’s huge blue orbs, they’re so different. Their shape is unusual, narrow as if he’s squinting, but they’re not small. The colour, a pale blue-grey-green mix Eren can’t seem to look away from, make them seem bigger, glinting in the light, sharp.

 

Levi hadn’t expected the customer Armin had been talking with to demand his attention like he did. He was around Armin’s age, Levi would guess, younger than him by a few years, taller than both of them, well proportioned. He- Eren, Levi thinks he overheard- has a thin face that makes him seem friendly, leather jacket hanging from narrow shoulders as it catches the light slightly. It’s his eyes that have Levi’s fingers itching for a paint brush, though. Every shade of green, the kind only metallic paint could even attempt to set down on canvas. Glowing, like they’re lit from within. Levi is surprised to feel his pulse jump as he sees Eren look back at him. He’s holding Levi’s favourite carving in one hand.

  
  


“Levi, this is Eren” Armin says, and Levi nods instead of smiling, as Armin goes to serve a customer, but he looks straight into Eren’s eyes. Eren thinks the only thing more beautiful than the things Levi creates is Levi himself.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can now find me on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdaEcvcHzGe/  
> And tumblr at 104th-sqwahd-e


End file.
